Đồ đồng trang trí · Decorative bronze · Unique
Small drum, cast bronze
Trống đồng — the bronze drum, the delta's oldest art; here cast at a fifth of the size of the ancient ones, with the sun at the centre of the tympanum.
Nguyễn Văn Sơn
A drum in the form of the Ngọc Lũ bronze, cast two thousand years after it: the body and tympanum poured separately in sand moulds, joined, and the sun with its fourteen rays and the birds flying against the clock chased into the top by hand over five weeks.
It rings when struck with the heel of the hand. It is the oldest thing the village knows how to make.
- Materials
- Bronze, village patina
- Technique
- Sand-cast in two parts; tympanum chased with the Đông Sơn sun and birds
- Dimensions
- Ø 26 × 20 cm · Ø 10.2 × 7.9 in · 6.8 kg
- Edition
- Unique work · Signed and sealed on the reverse
- Made
- Đại Bái, Gia Bình · 2026
The making
Eleven weeks, in four movements
The drum is where the village's craft began, and it is still the piece the foundry is most careful with.
I
The moulds
Body and tympanum built separately in sand and clay, dried a month.
II
The pours
Two pours before dawn; the moulds broken.
III
The join
Tympanum and body joined and the seam worked back.
IV
The chasing
The sun, rays and birds cut over five weeks; the patina set.
From the same village
